You know you want a new website, you have found the company you want to work with and you know they are going to do a great job… oh, the excitement! You have waited so long and dreamed of what it should look like. You know what you personally like and don’t like and have given a brief… But are you thinking of what you like or focusing on what your customer wants?
When developing a website it is really important to not confuse your vision for the website with what is going to work for your business and attract your customers. Should you sabotage your business website because of what you like, or what you think is important to you?
The Plantabox home page
Very often an individual within a company will only consider what they want to project, emphasise and shout to the world. This is a danger as very often it is not what the world wants or needs from them.
All too often the text content is directed not at the world online, but is instead directed at either their local or existing customers — or, even worse, it has no direction at all. The concept that anyone anywhere who has a computer may see their website and be a potential customer has just not filtered through.
So what should the website content actually say? Common sense should prevail, — what do you look for, what would draw you in? The website must be designed for the visitors, not the owner, if it is to be successful.
The home page
The home page should introduce your business its products and services without jargon, embellishment or waffle. This page contains the main navigation (buttons to click to get around the site) and this should be clear and practical. This page should contain text that includes possible search terms within meaningful sentences. For example, if you wnat to be found for producing pink fluffy slippers in the Devon area, a sentence such as “We produce quality pink fluffy slippers in the heart of Devon” will help the site to be found.
The Ink2Paper home page
About us
The visitor is looking for an introduction to you or your company — they need to know your pedigree. They want to know your experience and ability level in order to gain confidence that you can be trusted to provide the services they require, or can produce the products they need in an efficient and timely manner. Name-drop branded customers or partnerships if you can, or better still link to testimonial pages or full case studies to underline your experience and capabilities.
Products and services
Regardless of whether or not you actually sell online, thepromotion of your business, products, or services should be professional, informative, and concise but always designed to draw your visitors in.
Again think what you would want to know if you were the customer and knew nothing about the product. What is it? How does it work? Are there colour or functionality options? Is there any restriction on sale or use? What is the cost? Is there a delivery charge? Once they have this information they can make their informed decision.
You must then make sure that the site navigation leads visitors effortlessly with as few stages as possible through to the sale or selection of you as a supplier.
Subsequent pages
Further pages should all follow the format of being text-rich with keywords to aid good SEO, but still must remain informative and clear.
The recipe
So the recipe for a good and successful website is:
- Remember that the website is for your customers, and not for you
- Good design — attractive and visually pleasing
- Easy navigation — customers must be able to get to where they need to be easily
- Customer-based information — text content should be composed to be informative and helpful to the customer, and remember to create keyword-rich content to aid search engine optimisation
